Alright, alright, alright. Time to catch up, before I start posting all the sketches from the Toulouse Symposium. I am not even halfway through scanning them all yet anyway. As mentioned in this post from June, I have a long list to get through, so let’s get cracking. I might keep the storytelling to a minimum, just look at the sketches and imagine what I was thinking about when I drew them. Let’s take a look at my Davis sketches from last Fall… Above, the opening page of a new sketchbook, and it’s that building on the corner of A Street (that’s “A” Street, not “a street”, I may have made that distinction before but it’s worth repeating) and 1st Street, which used to be a frat house, and at this moment in time it was painted yellow and the name ‘James A Kidd Foundation for the Arts’ was written above the door, for some reason, because shortly afterwards and to this day it is not written there any more. I don;t know what the building is going to be but I see people coming in and out, I don;t really need to pay too much attention to it. I like the shape of the tree in front. This is one of those ‘Fall quarter is about to begin, let’s start ramping things up’ sketches, and it was a busy Fall for me, no doubt. Busy is good, I like busy, but I appreciate the quieter Summer times as well.

Now here is a frat house, or maybe a sorority house, I don;t actually pay that much attention. For someone who prides himself on paying attention to the city and drawing all the changes over the years, being a real ‘interested’ sort of person, I do actually skip over details about what places are for or how things work. I do not, for example, have any idea how fire hydrants actually work, yet if you search for fire hydrants and sketches you’ll probably find me right up there on the lists. Or at least, until AI took over the world. I really like that Jaguar parked there. This was drawn on C Street, next to Central Park, while a Crafts fair was going on. I was talking for a little bit with one of the artists whose stall was nearby, I think they recognised me. I do like September sketches though, there is this ‘late Summer, not quite Fall’ air to them, it’s still hot, it reminds me of the first September I spent in Davis a year after arriving in America. Wow, September 2025, I just remembered, that was 20 years after I moved here. That’s a big deal. I love California, it’s a good place to have spent the majority of my adult years, the grown-up bits of my adult years.

Here’s another one from that week, drawn in the portrait-format sketchbook. This is the Belfry on A Street, I have drawn this building loads of times over the years, it’s an interesting shape and good to sketch.

The corner of 3rd and D, another one I have drawn loads before. Why do I keep sketching these buildings over and over? In case something changes. Something usually does, and then I have a record of it in my sketchbook. It’s like my purpose is to document the world. Maybe I should do a book. I’ve been saying it for years but never get around to it, a book of Davis sketches. I think people would buy it. I probably have a sketch for every day of the year in Davis, like one literally done on each calendar date. You definitely feel the different times of the year here. People say we don’t really have ‘seasons’ like other places do, it;s just summer and then a bit cooler, but it’s not true, the times of the year here are very distinctive, it;s just that summer is very long and very hot.

This was drawn at the Pence Gallery’s annual Art Auction, I sold a couple of pieces there last September. That’s Natalie, the director, speaking to the people at the gala event, and there is one of the musicians. I didn’t draw a lot that evening, just had a glass of wine, some food, looked at all the lovely art, and went home. This in fact was the day I celebrated 20 years in the USA. I thought it was the 26th but it was the 27th. I think a lot about that day.

Another tree in front of another house, this time on 4th Street, that’s Cooper House I believe, but I really like that tree. Maybe I should give a workshop on drawing trees. I have decided I want to be able to identify trees by looking at them, I even bought a box of flashcards with different trees and their leaves on them so I could learn them. Again it’s that thing where I love to draw things but lack that extra detail of knowing what they actually are or anything about them. Like, my mind says, “you’ve draw it haven’t you, that’s enough information for now, draw something else”. I feel like it was like that in Toulouse as well, I looked up the street names later, and am still figuring out the names of the buildings I sketched. Anyway I like these trees that get a kind of orange colour on their bark, it looks good.

Finally, from the same day but sketched after work when I went downtown before heading home, this is at the corner of 1st and E Streets, I like this little house and the way that path leads up to the door. I think it’s a dentists or a realtors, I really don’t know (see what I mean, it’s not like I don’t care what things are, I just like sketching). Next up: October 2025…